Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

While Anidel puts the interface in shape for Fremantle, Meego, whatever, I've just seen that Xournal 0.4.5 from debian repos, downloaded in the easy debian environment, and called from maemo (you can open a debian xterm and give a "su user -c xournal" command - or make an appropriate .desktop file in /usr/share/applications/hildon/ ) works wonderfully and with all the bells and whistles that are available upstreams.

The point is calling it from the maemo environment (if you call it from the lxde environment, the input doesn't work).

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Anidel, are you still going to create your fancy UI?
I hope so. The Debian UI is too cramped.

We're trying to be patient! :)

Bruce

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

I have been trying to do the following (like I used to do with my N800 and N810 before).

- open a pdf file (actually a form to input lots of details but very small fields available to fit the details if hand-written).

- add the details using the text tool, circle the right options with circle tool. Put cross in the right boxes with the line tool and so on.

- export the file to pdf again and it was ready to be printed and sent or just attach to the email.

With the version I have on the N900, I can't figure out the right steps. I have tried all kinds of tricks but the normal pdf on my PC refuses to open the files. When I open the same file again in the N900 Xournal, it looks just fine. I know that something is missing.

Please help!

I have tried searching this thread but doesn't give me much idea.

:confused:
Hagar

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Is there a help file or User Guide or something similar for this? I have a lot of those forms waiting to be updated and waiting to do it with this one. It's sad that I have given away both of my previous tablets :(
In those versions I could easily do this very fast since most of the check marks and details remained same, I could just open one master form and add the data there, export it to pdf and then just change few items and export it again with new name. Doesn't anyone do this kind of thing with Xournal??

regards,
Hagar

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Does anyone use this Xournal anymore? How about the developer? Can anyone help me?

ANY ONE???

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

@Hagar: just use the easy debian version; I am using that one only at present, and it works well and quickly.
The developer will go on when he's got time... he's made already a marvellous work, but this is not his full time job as you can imagine :)

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

1. Open PDF in Xournal using the "Open" button.
2. Use the built-in tools to add things.
3. Click on the menu and select export. Save it as something else, so you're not getting confused between the original PDF file (test.pdf), the xournal file (test.pdf.xoj), and the newly exported pdf file (test2.pdf).

From what I can see, the test2.pdf file works perfectly in both the built-in n900 PDF viewer and Evince.
If, however, you're trying to copy the test.pdf.xoj file from your n900, then no, you won't be able to open that in a pdf viewer.
Just in case it needs to be stated, if you're hiding extensions of filetypes in Windows then you should turn that off so you can see whether it's the test.pdf.xoj or the test.pdf file that you're copying from the n900.

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

@debernardis and codeMonkey,

Thank you very much! This is just what I was hoping to figure out.

You were right about the extension part. I was trying everything like save as, rename etc. with the original files with .pdf.xoj and .xoj.bj etc.

Now that I have exported, I am able to open it both on the PC and N900. It's funny that when you try to export it, the program always starts in the root directory and then you have to find your way to the last directory. Just to make life easy, I had to first save everything in the root and then move the files later to the directory of my choice at a stroke! One more funny thing I realized is that the extensions are automatically added, although N900 dialog doesn't show them. So initially, I ended up with lots of files like x.pdf.pdf, y.pdf.pdf ;)

Anyway, I can finally get on with the initial work now. Is there a way to change the font (size, bold, etc.)? I also didn't find a way to make circles or straight line except for the free hand pencil tool! And with that one you have to be really steady ;)

Unfortunately I have been able to use this only on one type of form yet because of the size and type of the font problem. That form was the only one with the font close enough to the font used by this program. The others are so very different that my font almost "jumps" at the reader! Is there way to enable font modifications, circles and line drawing etc.?

I know I'm getting too greedy now :D

Hagar

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

One more thing! I remember that earlier versions on the N8x0 allowed you to use the eraser on almost anything including the original background pdf too. The problem is that part of the forms I am trying to use have a bad spots all over the corners because they were obviously scanned or photocopied from the original paper versions and the photocopy leaves bad black shadows all over the edges! I tried to "rub them out" using the eraser here but nothing happened. Only when you rub it on the things you have drawn, it works!

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

If this is added, I would hope it is an option rather than a change. It is useful to have it erase only your writing and not the original pdf.

Btw, I'm looking forward to the update...been several months since 0.4.2.1

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Hi guys,
sorry for being absent for so long.

I have relocated to Canada as you might know already and this is eating up lots of time. Also we're dealing with some close deadlines.

I should come "back at work" on Xournal in the next few weeks.

Aniello

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

About been several months on 0.4.2.1 now there's 0.4.5 in -devel :P
ehhe

Just a bit unusable :D

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

changelog? has it finally been optified?

thanks for the update :)

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Yep, it'll be optified :)

Next stable one, that is...

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

I have been using Xournal for a while (I updated to 0.4.5), and find it pretty usable and stable.
My only problem is exporting PDF's. From some reason they work perfect in the mobile (Even with the PDF viewer), but when I try to open them in the computer I get an error (Can't remember it now).
Are you having the same problem? Will it be fixed soon?
Thanks for a very useful app

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Just installing PR1.2 SDK, we'll rebuild Xournal and see if there are any problems with PR1.2 and start working on it again on a more regular basis.

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Hi,
I use Xournal regularly, but there seems to be an issue.
I usually use the app to take some notes in handwriting.
However, it seems that if I write something longer (eg. filling the N900's screen), the app becomes sluggish and unresponsive.
Why is that?

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Yeah I am aware of that and I am not so sure of why it slows down so much.

I will profile the code and see where it spends plenty of time.

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Hey, anidel! Good to see you back working on this - I'll download the latest and give it a shot. I know have a laptop + Wacom Bamboo, so I may be less militant about small-form-factor issues, but I still think this is a great app, and will use it for other things. :P

Whereabouts in Canada did you move to, by the way? (If you don't mind saying)

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Why should I ?
I am in Kamloops in British Columbia.
Quite isolated for my taste, but BC is very very wild and plenty of hiking awaits for me as soon as it becomes a bit warmer!

EDIT: WOW You're from Vancouver!! I just noticed! Cool, we shall meet one day :)
Going to Seattle for Easter, but planning another trip to Vancouver...

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

I've uploaded a new version to extras-devel (0.4.5-1fremantle2).

This simply adds a menu to select/add new layers (shall add the remove functionality).

Aniello

EDIT: Hack, forgot we can't install it until PR1.2 has been released :(
Such a shame... I shouldn't have updated the SDK to 1.2

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Hi!

I've been using Xournal for note-taking for a while now and I have a few suggestions and feature requests :)

Firstly, I love that it automatically fills in the name field with the date and time (saves time when quickly saving and opening a new note), but it would be nice if it remembered the last successfully saved-to folder, so you don't always have to traverse the file system when saving or exporting a lot of notes.

That brings me to the export option. I really like that you can export PDF files easily as it makes notes portable and reusable in other apps.
In that note, I'd love some more export options, like:

• export to PNG and possibly other image formats (with customizable resolution/size, with extra whitespace around sketches or without (cropped to content))
• export without the horizontal lines (which are helpful while writing, but not so much when exported, especially with drawings/sketches/diagrams/not text)

These options should of course be remembered like the last saved-to folder too :)

Exporting is a bit of a chore if you have a lot of notes though, due to the above mentioned remember-folder issue. That said, Xournal could have command line options (which it already might have, but I'm not aware of them), which would allow instant export of Xournal save files to other file formats (provided as the argument and/or implied from file extension). Exporting a lot of them wouldn't bother me so much if the last folder exported to was remembered though :)

A feature that would really help with note-taking / sketching would be the ability to expand the canvas either automagically (which could create an infinite canvas to draw to) or something along the lines of the Sketch application that came with the N900 (buttons to expand the canvas to left/right/top/bottom).
I'm not sure what expanding the canvas would do to the export-to-PDF option, possibly scaling the canvas to fit the PDF page? There should be no problems if you added the export-to-PNG option though :)

Sharing is nice too, but it'd be even nicer if you didn't have to save an arbitrary PDF somewhere (it could probably save a temporary one somewhere, but that might bring some problems?). I guess it could be nice if it had an insta-share function that would capture the current contents of the page and automatically upload to a site like http://imgur.com/ and return the url somehow or open it automatically, which would make notes instantly available for web usage.

I should mention that this is all just based on my experiences using Xournal to take notes during class - writing equations, sketching pictures and drawing diagrams.

I've already written too much about all this, so I should just say thanks for the awesome Xournal and keep up the good work! :D

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Thanks for the feedback!

I am happy to say that most of your requests are "coming back" with one of the next release.
The ability to change the background to whatever you want, the ability to set the size of the page to pre-defined format (A4, A4 Letter and so on up to Custom size).

Some won't. Or at least not in a near future. I will investigate some of them (like exporting to different formats rather then PDF alone) or the "batch" export of notes.

At work now, I will try a more complete answer soon :)

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Layers in Xournal are back.
Next: Paper styles (style, color, size - per page / all pages) and as such also using images as background to annotate onto.

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

This is in the study. Will come.


This is coming back. You will be able to choose the background of each page.
We'll see if I can easily add the option to skip exporting the background.

Looking now at remembering the saved-to folder.

This would help indeed... but don't expect it anytime soon :)

This was already in Xournal, is there, just missing the UI elements for it. Will be back.

The problem is that auto-saving the PDF asks to save the file first.
Should not be complex to remove this requirement and have Xournal automatically save the PDF to a temporary location.
The problem is that once you "share it", Xournal has no ways to know if the export has completed and thus the temp file could be removed.
I need to think about it.

It's never too much :) keep posting suggestions.

Aniello

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Awesome, thanks!

About the sharing stuff, it'd be really neat if there was a button that instantly saved a temporary PDF, uploaded it to http://imgur.com (it supports PDF upload and auto-converts to PNG and it has an API, so uploading shouldn't be that hard?) and then stored the url in the clipboard or something.
I know integrating an arbitrary web service like this into the application doesn't necessarily seem that wise, but I think that it'd be a big time saver, at least for me :p
This would also bypass the temporary PDF saving issue (since you know when you've uploaded the file) and the PDF to PNG conversion (since it's automatically done on their servers).

That said, I can't wait to use the new versions! :)

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Eheh Xournal supports the Sharing Plugins system that is already in place in Maemo Fremantle. So it's just a matter of writing a sharing plugin for that site and evey applications that uses the sharing plugins will benefit of it.

But I do not have time for it :) sorry.

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

I've uploaded package fremantle3 to extras-devel and you should get an update now already.
This one should be installable on PR1.1 so you can test it.

Remember it's still in -devel :)

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Package fremantle4 is on extras-devel... added About dialog.

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

About the Donate button.

I thought about it. To add or not to add.
I always want my software to be free, in the most wide sense. Free also of the SENSE of due something to someone, even a thank.
I don't do Xournal for thanks or for money. I do it for fun.

But nonetheless I am receiving Thanks AND some money (just for a pizza, but still). That made me think that people simply want to thank.
No matter if you want or need those thanks.

That donate button is for those people and for those people only (and, really, they don't have to!).
Believe it or not. It's for those people.

So do not send money, I am not looking for those when doing this fun on Xournal.

Aniello

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

@ anidel, is version 0.4.2.1 the latest for Diablo?
Also, I know I can email a saved PDF file. I would be faster, though, if I cound write a brief note and do an immediate "send to email" without having to save or name a file. I think the Maemo "Sketch" app does this.

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Yes for now it is, but when I finish releasing a stable 0.4.5 for Fremantle I plan to port it back to Diablo or even earlier.

The step to save to PDF before sending it is needed because once I create, let's say, a temporary PDF that I then give to the sharing plugin or e-mail or bluetooth system to send, then I do not have any control of it anymore.
Xournal has no way, that I know of, to know when the sending is done and, thus, when I have to delete the temporary file.

So I'd rather ask you to save it (as if it was going to be exported to PDF) than have temporary files lying around the system.

Until, of course, I, or someone, come up with a better idea...

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Well, in the meanwhile PNG support is almosts there thanks to a patch to upstream Xournal from <Zubeido>.

Update to latest fremantle6 from extras-devel and Export saving with .png (or .PNG) as Extension.

There's some weird thing going on with filenames.. but it's a matter of time to fix those. For now, Exporting to PNG kinda works.

Aniello

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

The issue is that each page is exported as a PNG, need to figure out how to make the Export work with all the files...

UPDATE: that was easy, tomorrow I should add support to export all the PNG files generated when exporting a multi-page document.

Umm and I shall add a bit more support to Pages as well

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

that so sweet !!!!!!!

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Anidel:
I just updated to the new version earlier today, and it looks good (read: I haven't had time to actually use it yet, but the UI additions look shiny :D). Nice to see it getting fleshed out.

That's a rather unusual perspective, but if you really feel that you want to give it away for free (and not accept money even if offered) - and are in a position where that's practical for you, then here's a suggestion: let people donate if they want to, and then give the money to other FOSS developers who do need support. Cory Doctorow does a similar thing with his books (which are sold in stores, but released Free under Creative Commons online), by asking people who want to donate money, but don't need a hard-copy, to pay for a copy to be sent to a school or library, rather than donating to him.
Just my two $small_currency_units. Keep up the good work!

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Hi,

I'm not sure if I'm missing something or not, but is there a way to create new pages? I'd find Xournal really useful if I could create multiple pages (800x480) to use like revision flashcards. I suppose that might not be the intended use though.

Also, is it possible to change the pen size? I find it a little thin for most of my notes.

Otherwise - great app and really useful for highlighting pdfs and suchlike!

John

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

No you're not missing anything :)

Add/Delete Pages is coming as well as the Pen sizes.
But if you open a multiple page PDF document, it'll automatically open a new page for each page of the PDF.

Aniello

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

Quick reply - thanks!

Good to hear that these features are on the way - it will make it great for me.

I had in fact come up with a work-around for the lack of page creation by creating a blank "pad" in Xournal on my desktop and sending it over to the phone.

Keep up the great work.

John

Re: Xournal for Fremantle
 

All the Xournal features are getting their "shiny" UI elements... it just takes some time :)

Aniello